Loot boxes are currently a hot topic in the gaming industry, leading many companies to re-evaluate how their own systems work. In an attempt to get ahead of the curve, Riot has now released its drop rates for League of Legends’ Hextech Chests, alongside its bonus drops and special rules.

League of Legends treads the fine line of the controversy, as Hextech Chests are available to earn in-game, either through randomly dropping or a direct purchase of 125 Riot Points, or bought with real money. Riot has included the Hextech rates on League of Legends’ support section on the official site and promises that it will be updated “whenever we make changes to Hextech chests,” even if there’s a timed event.

Hextech Chests

Skin Shard—50 percent.

Champion Shard—25 percent.

Emote Permanent—10 percent.

Ward Skin Shard + 150 Bonus Orange Essence—11.5 percent.

Summoner Icon Shard + 150 Bonus Orange Essence—3.5 percent.

Bonus Drops

Gemstone—3.6 percent.

Bonus Chest + Key—10 percent.

Masterwork Chests will also be purchasable in-game with 165 Riot Points, or 225 including the chest and the key. For those wanting to buy in bulk, 11 chests are bundled for 2250 Riot Points including the keys.

Riot has also detailed a “special rules” section that applies to both types of loot crates, ensuring almost all skins have the same chance of dropping and that players won’t ever be able to open up three crates without it dropping a skin shard, the in-game material used to craft skins.

Special Rules

Equal Odds: Outside of Hextech exclusive skins, all skins in the system have the same odds of dropping. Any given ultimate skin is just as likely to drop as a cheaper skin.

Big Drops, Free Unlock: Ultimate and mythic skins drop as auto-redeeming permanents (no orange essence required to upgrade them). If you already own the skin, you’ll be able to disenchant them for orange essence.

Bad Luck Protection: You can’t open three chests in a row without dropping at least one skin shard. This raises the effective drop rate of skin shards to roughly 57 percent.

Bonus Gemstones: Gemstones have a 3.6 percent chance of dropping as a bonus alongside normal chest content. These also have light “bad luck protection,” since you can’t go more than 50 boxes without getting a gemstone. This brings the overall drop rate up to 4 percent.

Chests inside Chests: Bonus chests (with a key) have a 10 percent chance to drop whenever you open a Hextech chest. Each of these chests also have a 10 percent chance to drop with another bonus chest (and key).

Hextech Exclusives: Outside of redeeming Gemstones for these skins, they also have a 1 in 2,500 chance to drop alongside the normal Hextech chest content.

Players who behave badly will incur temporary bans from earning loot boxes in-game. The duration of the ban is scalable to the severity and consistency of the negative behaviour. For those not receiving loot boxes but are well rounded players who don’t fall into this category of toxic, Riot has also detailed that this might be due to the fact that chests cannot be earned with heroes that are not owned by the account. If this is not the case, the player might have reached the limit of 4 chests per week, meaning that they will have to wait for the cooldown period to earn more.

So far, loot boxes have incurred the wrath of politicians in two US states, as both seek to introduce bills in order to regulate them. Looking elsewhere, Sweden has been one of the latest to announce its investigating into loot boxes and their relationship to gambling as well as the level of harm that they could pose to children.

KitGuru Says: Government regulation isn’t necessarily a good thing, even if something needs to be done about the malpractice of loot boxes. It seems as if Riot realises this and is looking to show governing bodies that it can regulate itself, but is it too little, too late? Are you happy with loot boxes in League of Legends?